Slots bids head to court
No surprise, the fight over who gets Maryland's slot machine gambling licenses is headed to court.
This was bound to happen, but may have come somewhat more quickly than many would have predicted. How this will play out is impossible to know, but it sure makes David Cordish's promise to break ground on a casino by the end of the year look a lot less likely.
House Minority Leader Tony O'Donnell said yesterday that Gov. Martin O'Malley needs to get involved and "go back to the drawing board" on the bidding process. Republicans have been in I-told-you-so mode of late, saying the lackluster bidding for Maryland's five slots licenses is proof that O'Malley and the Democrats crafted a lousy slots program with a tax rate too high to be attractive to any decent gambling operators. They may well be right that Maryland's 67 percent tax rate -- among the highest in the nation -- discouraged bidders. Ditto Baltimore City's effort to get $32 million a year in rent for its slots site.
But I'm not sure there's anything Maryland could have done that would have prevented this from winding up in court. Look at Pennsylvania -- even with a lower tax rate and a much better economy, the Keystone State's slots program took years to get off the ground amid legal wrangling, political maneuvering and a few indictments for good measure. There's just too much money at stake.
Comments
Regardless how flawed this thing has been from day 1, the process needs to be played out. It MUST not be manipulated to reward any bidder over another and that is what it looks like is happening.
Posted by: AnotherWatcher | February 13, 2009 9:13 AM
What needs to be said here is that Maryland has failed. Big time.
We failed to establish gambling years ago because lord knows, a victory for the Ehrlich administration would be far worse than the mess we are in today.
Once slots was passed it was done in a bizarre way and is now enshrined in our state's constiutition alongside of freedom of the press, etc. Another embarrassment.
We now have an application procedure that is coming off as dubiously legal and the very industry that we had hoped to save now looks as if it will wither and die before our very eyes with the applications for Laurel Park being thrown out.
Who loses in the end? Our schools, our horsemen and their open spaces.
Bravo, Maryland.
Posted by: bryanintimonium | February 13, 2009 9:30 AM
bryanintimonium
This was never about schools.
Posted by: Carole | February 13, 2009 10:15 AM
bryanintimonium, slot funding of schools meant nothing. The funds from slots that was destined to the school systems was NOT EXTRA money to the system. The school funding stays the exact same, it only meant that the SOURCE of the funds was different.
It did not mean ONE EXTRA DIME to the school systems.
If our GA wanted to fund the schools more all they have to do is produce a "mistake" and send more money to a few systems and decide they can keep it then give them the same amount next year. Oh, whats that? They ALREADY did that? Thats right they did.
Posted by: AnotherWatcher | February 13, 2009 10:47 AM
That's Maryland's politics for you!
hese guys in Annapolis could screw up a wet dream!
How does this state put up with the incompetence of Annaplois?
How does the newspaper support these jabronis?
Maryland the fleece state!
Posted by: jay | February 13, 2009 12:10 PM
Hey Andy why not blast your heroes in Annapolis for not getting this done when Ehrlich was governor?
Or would that be aiding and abetting th enemy?
The real folly here is Democrats palying politics on this issue while Ehrlich was governor!
That's the real crime!
The rest well what do you expect from Annapolis!
Posted by: jay | February 13, 2009 12:15 PM